


alternative arrangement

by queenssaviour



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Swan Queen Week, Swan Queen Week Winter 2017
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-22 19:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9621359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenssaviour/pseuds/queenssaviour
Summary: Her sleeping buddy seems to wake up to her screaming. The dark-haired woman sits up and turns around so fast that Emma wonders how she doesn’t get a whiplash. Regina –Regina– looks alarmed, her eyes wide and her gaze shifting around the room, andoh, good lord. Those are Regina’s breasts.Emma quickly looks away. She fixes her gaze on the ceiling - it looks particularly interesting and neutral today – but even that can’t make her forget what she just saw. The image of Regina’s dark nipples has been imprinted on her retina, and she really doesn’t know why, because she most certainly doesnotcare.“Emma, are you okay? You screamed,” Regina says, and she sounds so worried that Emma wants to hug her or… pat her back because they don’t really do the whole hugging thing, especially in this kind of situation. “Why are we naked? Why are you in my bed?”“I really don’t know,” she responds, her gaze still on the ceiling as she hugs the sheets to hide her upper body behind them.In which Emma and Regina get stuck in an Alternate Universe where they're married.Written for Swan Queen Week, Day six (Trapped in an AU).





	

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know what this is, but I'm posting it anyway. This... might be a post s4 fic without the sacrifice? Maybe post s5 without the split? Probably lowkey inspired by Futurama? Who knows? Enjoy!
> 
> Many thanks to Leigh for coming up with a bunch of titles I could choose from (I could _not_ come up with anything)!! Thanks to Tris once again for beta reading  & thanks to Mari and a bunch of other people on Twitter who said I should post this!!

Zelena sighs.

 

Her sister is ridiculous.

 

Her sister’s friend-slash-co parent is also ridiculous. Zelena is positive the entire town knows why. She’s talked to quite a few people, from Granny to Snow White, and all of them have agreed with her.

 

Emma Swan and Regina Mills are in love with each other but refuse to do anything about it.

 

It was funny at first. The pining looks. The jealousy. The way they never hugged, as if they’d get caught expressing too many hidden emotions if they did. The way they’d try to convince themselves that they liked to spend time together _for Henry,_ even when their shared son was nowhere to be seen.

 

It was funny for the first month or… five, but it’s been  _years_ now, and Zelena has had enough.

 

She talked to Belle about a week ago, and the woman said that she thinks that there is another universe where Emma and Regina have confessed their feelings already. Zelena thinks that Belle said that because of a book she read, but Zelena knows for a fact that there are parallel universes. They are very similar to this one, but some things are different because of the decisions people in those universes have made, and they aren’t talked about as much as other realms. Zelena has done her fair share of realm jumping, and she doesn’t have any particular interest in doing that again anytime soon, but parallel universes…. Someone could use a visit to one.

 

That someone is obviously her sister and the woman she’s so clearly in love with. Zelena has decided that they need to see how good things are for the Emma and Regina of some other universe.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s Friday night when she’s almost done with the potion that has to be taken for the parallel world spell to work; she’s only one ingredient short. The potion has to include the hairs of a magical true love couple, but that’s hardly an issue when her sister and Emma exist. She takes one of the hairs from Regina’s hair brush and then she simply yanks one from Emma’s head while the woman's gazing lovingly at Zelena’s sister.

 

“Ouch! Zelena, what the hell?”

 

“Sorry, I saw a flea. My mistake,” she replies and walks into her room. Emma doesn’t call after her (probably because she’s continuing her love-sick gazing), so Zelena can add the final ingredient and pour the potion into a small vial.

 

She can’t help a smile from forming on her lips. Even though she has left her most wicked days behind, life can become incredibly boring if you never do anything out of the ordinary. The spell she’s planning on casting should give Emma and Regina some idea of what they’re missing out on.

 

“Zelena, could you pour the wine while I finish this?” Regina asks her when she enters the kitchen, and if that isn’t a perfect opportunity to slip the potion to both of her unsuspecting victims, she doesn't know what is.

 

“Sure thing, sis.”

 

She slips the potion into Emma and Regina’s glasses with such precision that she surprises even herself. She avoids using magic because the rest of the dinner party could easily sense it, and she’s not going to get caught for such an amateur mistake. Neither woman has any idea what’s about to happen as they start the dinner, sip their wine, and talk about Henry (who isn’t there because he’s spending the evening with Violet) and other safe topics instead of their undying feelings for each other.

 

“What are you smirking about?” Regina says, and for her horror, Zelena quickly realizes the question is pointed at her.

 

“What do you mean?” she responds as she tries to appear as nonchalant as she possibly can.

 

“I mean your face. You look like you’re planning something.”

 

“Well,” she says as she tries to drag out her response long enough to come up with an excuse for her supposedly triumphant expression. “I just think that Belle and Rumpelstiltskin’s divorce is really going to stick this time.”

 

Her sister looks at her curiously for a while but seems to accept her response as she nods. “I see.”

 

She’s more wary of her expressions and words after that, which seems to work since Regina doesn’t seem suspicious or ask her any more questions. The dinner goes on normally as if it were any other Friday night, and when they retreat to their rooms (because yes, there is a guest room that by now might as well be called the Emma-room), Zelena fights the urge to laugh and clap her hands.

 

If her spell and potion work, Emma and Regina should wake up in a parallel universe where they’re together.

 

* * *

 

 

Emma doesn’t want to open her eyes. She was having the most wonderful dream: she and Regina were cuddling by the fire after dinner and a movie. It had felt so nice, Regina’s warm, smooth body against –

 

_Warm smooth body against hers?_

 

Emma opens her eyes and shrieks. She’s naked and there’s someone else naked beside her, and that someone looks a whole lot different from the last person she shared her bed with.

 

(That, mind you, was a few years ago, but the fact that she wakes up in bed naked with a woman kind of throws her off.)

 

Her sleeping buddy seems to wake up to her screaming. The dark-haired woman sits up and turns around so fast that Emma wonders how she doesn’t get a whiplash. Regina – _Regina_ – looks alarmed, her eyes wide and gaze shifting around the room, and _oh, good lord. Those are Regina’s breasts._

 

Emma quickly looks away. She fixes her gaze on the ceiling - it looks particularly interesting and neutral today – but even that can’t make her forget what she just saw. The image of Regina’s dark nipples has been imprinted on her retina, and she really doesn’t know why, because she most certainly does _not_ care.

 

“Emma, are you okay? You screamed,” Regina says, and she sounds so worried that Emma wants to hug her or… pat her back because they don’t really do the whole hugging thing, especially in this kind of situation. “Why are we naked? Why are you in my bed?”

 

“I really don’t know,” she responds, her gaze still on the ceiling as she hugs the sheets to hide her upper body behind them.

 

Regina let’s out a “hmm” before Emma can feel the mattress underneath her shift and Regina gets out of the bed. She walks towards what Emma assumes is the closet, although she’s not sure since she avoids looking in Regina’s direction.

 

“What the hell?” Regina bawls in the closet, and Emma shifts closer to her although she still won’t leave the bed before Regina has put some clothes on and left the room.

 

She tries to look around instead, but nothing seems particularly out of the ordinary. She’s in Regina’s bedroom, morning sun is pouring inside from the window, and the red numbers of Regina’s alarm clock tell her it’s twenty-three past eight, so she doesn’t have to be at work yet.

 

“Emma,” Regina says, and Emma turns her head to her direction. To her relief, Regina has put on a silky-looking indigo robe that covers what she saw earlier. “What day is it?”

 

“January twenty-seventh,” she replies after a few seconds.

 

“How old are you?”

 

She’s surprised by Regina’s question. Why would she- “Thirty-six. Why?”

 

“What did we do yesterday?”

 

“We had dinner with Zelena like most Fridays,” she responds, still confused.

 

“Good.” Regina sighs as she sits down on the bed. “So we’re in this together, then.”

 

“In what? What’s happening?”

 

“Well,” Regina says as she flexes her fingers. “I seem to be sharing my closet with you, which would suggest that we are either in a different reality, traveled in time, or something of that sort.”

 

She tries to respond, but her mouth hangs open instead. Even though she’s almost used to realm jumping and time traveling by now, she hasn’t done it in the world they currently live in. She hasn’t done any recently, either, since Storybrooke has been drama-free since they defeated Lucifer (the cat. She’s lucky that’s the only villain named Lucifer she’s ran into).

 

“Are you… going to be okay?” Regina asks carefully.

 

“Uhm,” Emma shakes her head and tries to concentrate on the conversation Regina is trying to have with her. “Yeah. I’ll take a shower and meet you downstairs?”

 

“Alright,” Regina says as she stands up and straightens her robe. She looks simultaneously worried and breathtakingly beautiful, her brow scrunched and her face scrubbed free from makeup.

 

It takes Emma a while before she remembers she was supposed to shower and get dressed so they could start fixing this mess.

 

* * *

 

 

Regina crosses her arms after closing the bedroom door behind her.

 

She can’t believe she’s actually trapped somewhere where she and Emma share a bed. Waking up next to Emma reminded her of what she wants but can’t have – what she has admitted she wants for quite some time now, albeit not out loud. For a split second, she thinks how it would’ve been to wake up in some other way than Emma shrieking into her ear, but she brushes the thought away.

 

She doesn’t have any doubts about Emma being sincere. She _knows_ Emma; after all they’ve been through, she would be able to tell if the woman in her bed wasn’t the same Emma Swan she had had dinner with last night. This is definitely the Emma she knows; the woman had been as uncomfortable as she would’ve expected her to be after waking up next to her.

 

The first thing she does is walk towards Henry’s room. She hopes their son is safely in his bed, preferably in their world and time instead of where she is now. She can feel her heart rate increase and her palms turn sweaty when she reaches for the handle of the door, not ready for whatever she’ll find behind it.

 

It turns out the room is just the way it is back home. She walks in, and apart from some minor details, like the color of Henry’s jacket, everything seems to be the same. The room feels like a replica of what she’s used to, yet simultaneously foreign like her closet.

 

Just before she’s about to walk out of the room, she sees a photo on one of the shelves of Henry’s book case. It’s a picture of the three of them that she doesn’t recall seeing before; she thinks she would remember putting a picture like that on display. Henry is wearing a tux and a smile that reaches his eyes, and she can’t help but smile too.

 

Her eyes land on Emma next. She’s wearing something that seems like a white dress, although Regina can’t be sure since the picture has been taken only from waist-up. She’s smiling too, the way she does more nowadays than she did when she was with the loathsome pirate.

 

When she looks at herself, she can see that she’s not looking at the camera at all. Her eyes are on Emma and Henry, and the expression on her face looks so happy and adoring she’s amazed how someone managed to capture that on camera. She’s wearing white too, and she suspects this might actually be a wedding picture. Maybe they’re married.

 

Or maybe…

 

Maybe this is someone’s idea of a joke. Showing her something she really wants but can’t have because either Emma is not interested in her at all or she’s so clueless about what she’s feeling that she just doesn’t know. Regina’s been trying to figure out which option is right, but she hasn’t been able to even though she’s tried for years.

 

One could think that this morning’s encounter would’ve cleared things up a bit, but it has made Regina all the more confused. Emma could’ve reacted the way she did because waking up naked next to someone is rather awkward, no matter how you slice it. They always keep their distance, never even hug, so the sort of cuddling they had woken up to was bound to cause a reaction. Emma likes to keep her distance from people. It could be just that.

 

But then again, Emma might’ve reacted strongly because of her feelings. She has caught Emma looking at her in a way men look at her, the way Maleficent looked at her, and she can’t help but wonder…

 

She shakes her head. This is not the time for this. She leaves Henry’s room and goes downstairs, hoping to find more answers there, and she does, in a way, when she runs into her son in the kitchen. She sees he’s the same age he was the day before, so that leaves time travel out.

 

“Morning, Mom,” Henry says with a smile on his face. “Is Ma still asleep?”

 

“Um,” she says, unsure what to answer. “No, she’s in the shower.”

 

Should she tell Henry what’s happened?  Should she just act normal? Is this Henry even real?

 

“Okay,” he says and smiles.

 

Regina smiles back because he seems so real, but she’s been wrong before. It was easy for Pan to pretend he was Henry and it wouldn’t be impossible for someone to do that again. She shakes her head at the unpleasant memory.

 

“Oh, by the way, Mom,” he says as he gets something from the fridge. “Could you maybe start using those soundproof spells on the bedroom again? I’m glad you and Ma are together, but too much is too much.”

 

He seems awfully casual, but she can feel her face turn red. What did Henry hear last night? Was that even real? Is any of this? Maybe this is a nightmare instead.

 

“It’s okay, Mom. I’m nineteen. Just for future reference…” he says as he throws an apple into his bag. “I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you at dinner!”

 

Henry gives her a casual hug and it feels right, just like hugging Henry has always felt. She would want to hold him longer, but then he’s gone and she’s left alone in the kitchen. She looks around and comes to the conclusion that everything’s in the right place and doesn’t understand what is the point of her and Emma being in a world where they’re evidently married.

 

They must have been together for a while now if Henry’s casual talk is anything to go by. If this world is real, she really doesn’t understand what caused them to end up together. For a moment, she feels envious of the other Regina who gets to kiss Emma goodnight and wake up next to her in the morning whereas she’s stuck in a constant state of pining and ‘what if’s that are getting old even for her.

 

“Did you find out anything?”

 

Regina turns around and finds Emma standing in the doorway, dressed in a red plaid shirt with her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. She hasn’t stopped looking awkward, and Regina can’t help but wonder what she’s thinking.

 

“Yes, I talked to Henry. He’s his normal self,” she says as she braces herself for what’s about to come next. “And we’re married.”

 

“What?” Emma says, her voice rising an octave. She looks shocked and… _scared?_   “How?”

 

Regina is unsure what to say. She assumes Emma doesn’t mean how people get married, so she responds with, “I saw our wedding picture in Henry’s room.”

 

“I’m…” Emma says, her voice almost inaudible. “I don’t like women.”

 

She doesn’t get a chance to respond because that’s when her sister, who is definitely one for dramatic entrances, magicks herself into the kitchen in a puff of green smoke.

 

“I’m sorry if I’m interrupting,” Zelena says as she fixes her black hat. Despite her words, she doesn’t seem sorry at all, interest evident on her face as her gaze shifts from Regina to Emma. “Did I just hear you say you don’t like women?”

 

“Zelena,” Emma says. “What are you doing here?”

 

“Ah, yes,” Zelena says. “Well...”

 

“I would like to know too,” Regina adds. She’s on her toes, unsure of what her and Zelena’s relationship is in this reality.

 

“Well, a little bird told me I might get some visitors from an alternate universe. Long story.” She waves her hand and walks towards the kitchen counter to grab a green apple. “So I thought I’d see that myself.” She takes a bite of the apple and sits down on one of the stools surrounding the island. She looks incredibly content with the entire situation, a smile on her lips and her eyes full of mirth.

 

“Who’s that little bird you’re talking about?” Emma asks.

 

“Oh, myself. Your Zelena decided to show you what you could have in a rather… vivid way. It’s rather impressive,” Zelena says. “Mind you, if I had had to wait for you two to get together for years, I would’ve done the same.”

 

“Did you ever just… consider talking to your sister first?” she asks.

 

“I suppose, but what’s the fun in that?” Zelena retorts before biting on her apple again. “So, Emma. You don’t like women? I thought we… all liked women here. You literally married my sister in front of my very eyes.”

 

“Zelena, please,” Regina says. She can see Emma is getting more uneasy by the second, and she wants to put a stop to that.

 

“No, I’ve… always been with men,” Emma starts but then shakes her head. “This is seriously none of your business. Don’t you have a kid? Shouldn’t you be looking after her?”

 

“Ah, yes. Pistachio.” Zelena smiles.  “Don’t worry. Belle’s looking after both kids. This is too good to miss.”

 

For a moment, Regina wonders if Zelena has ended up together with Belle in this universe, but she leaves that question for another time. Emma looks distressed, her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her shirt and her face full of worry. She needs to talk to Emma alone.

 

“I think you should go. We can talk later,” Regina says, her tone firm.

 

“But _whyy?_ ” Zelena pouts. She rolls her eyes and stands up before shrugging her shoulders. “Oh well. If you need anything, you can always call me. And remember that you’ll only be able to return when you’ve worked your way around your issues! See you later!” Zelena shoots them one more smile that shows her teeth before disappearing in a puff of emerald smoke.

 

Regina fights a groan. Just typical. She really doesn’t want to have this conversation, and she has a feeling Emma wants to talk about this even less than she does, but they’re out of choices.

  
“So, I suppose we should talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact... I usually plan out my fics, but I have no idea how this one ends, so I hope I'll get it done. Let me know if you liked the chapter!
> 
> (Oh, and [here's my twitter](https://twitter.com/QUEENSSAVlOUR)!)


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